Brands
Sammyak Jain steps up as business head, international business at boAt
DELHI: boAt Lifestyle is turning up the volume on its global ambitions, and Sammyak Jain is now holding the controls.
The consumer tech brand has elevated Jain as business head, international business, tasking him with expanding boAt’s presence beyond India and strengthening its overseas footprint. In his new role, Jain will focus on scaling international markets, building partnerships and shaping the growth strategy for boAt’s rapidly expanding portfolio.
Sharing the news, Jain said he is excited to take on the responsibility of leading international business for a brand born in India. He added that he looks forward to building strong local teams across markets, learning fast and creating “global waves” for boAt.
Jain’s elevation caps a steady rise within the company. Since joining boAt in 2022, he has held multiple leadership roles, including head of strategy and operations and business head for enterprise and ODM sales. His expanded remit reflects the brand’s growing confidence in exporting its India-first success story to global audiences.
Before boAt, Jain spent nearly six years at Bain and Company, where he rose from associate consultant to senior manager, advising businesses across strategy and operations. He has also worked with Rocket Internet and completed internships at Kearney and Deloitte.
With a consultant’s eye for strategy and an operator’s feel for scale, Jain now faces his biggest brief yet. As boAt looks to plug into global markets, his job is simple to say and harder to do: make Indian cool, everywhere.
Brands
Godrej clarifies ‘GI’ identifier after logo similarity debate
Says GI is not a logo, will not replace Godrej signature across products.
MUMBAI: In a branding storm where shapes did the talking, Godrej is now spelling things out. Godrej Industries Group (GIG) has issued a clarification on its newly introduced ‘GI’ identifier, addressing questions around its purpose and design following a wave of online criticism. At the centre of the debate were two concerns: whether the new mark replaces the long-standing Godrej logo, and whether its geometric design mirrors other corporate identities.
The company has drawn a clear line. The Godrej signature logo, it said, remains unchanged and continues to be the sole logo across all consumer-facing products and services. The ‘GI’ mark, by contrast, is not a logo but a corporate group identifier intended for use alongside the Godrej signature or company name, and aimed at stakeholders such as investors, media and talent rather than consumers.
The need for such a distinction stems from the 2024 restructuring of the broader Godrej Group into two separate business entities. With both continuing to operate under the same Godrej name and signature, the identifier is positioned as a way to differentiate the Godrej Industries Group at a corporate level.
The rollout, however, triggered a broader conversation on design originality. Critics pointed to similarities between the GI mark’s geometric composition and logos used by companies globally, raising questions about distinctiveness.
Responding to this, GIG said its intellectual property and legal review found that such overlaps are common in minimalist, geometry-led design systems. Basic forms such as circles and rectangles appear across dozens of brand identities worldwide, the company noted.
It added that the identifier emerged from an extensive design process and was chosen for its simplicity, allowing it to sit alongside the Godrej signature without competing visually. While acknowledging that elemental shapes may appear less distinctive in isolation, the group emphasised that the mark is part of a broader identity system that includes a custom typeface, sonic branding and other proprietary elements.
Following legal and ethical assessments, the company said it found no impediment to using the identifier, reiterating that the GI mark is a corporate tool not a consumer-facing symbol.
In short, the logo isn’t changing but the conversation around it certainly has.
